Chipidea was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

analog semiconductor IP design center, headquartered in Oeiras,

Greater Lisbon Grande Lisboa () or Greater Lisbon is a former Portuguese NUTS III subregion integrated in the Lisboa Region. It was abolished at the January 2015 NUTS 3 revision. It is part of the historical Estremadura Province. It includes the capital and ...

subregion, which had been founded in 1997 by José Epifânio da Franca. In August 2007, it was bought by the US-based company

MIPS Technologies MIPS Technologies, Inc., formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., was an American fabless semiconductor design company that is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of RISC CPU chips based on it. MIPS provides proce ...

for $147 million in cash plus future performance-based stock payments. On May 8, 2009,

Synopsys Synopsys is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Products include tools for logic synthesis and physical design ...

acquired it as the Analog Business Group from MIPS Technologies for $22 million in cash.

History

In 1997, Chipidea Microelectronica S.A. was founded as the first

Analog semiconductor IP design center. The company evolved into a supplier of Analog and Mixed-Signal IP. The company's product portfolio included ADCs, DACs, PLLs and Synthesizers, Baseband Transmit and Receive Ports, RF front-ends, Analog and Digital Filters, Oversampling Modulators and Codec Analog Front-Ends, DC-DC Converters, Regulators, Digital Transceivers, Line Drivers, and other Physical Interfaces. Chipidea's application drivers were in Communications, Multimedia, and Consumer Electronics Applications. The company had 270 staff involved in IP research and development, CAD and technology support and test and characterization. They were located at the main building in Oeiras, near

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, as well as in other sites:

Maia Maia (; Ancient Greek: Μαῖα; also spelled Maie, ; la, Maia), in ancient Greek religion and mythology, is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes, one of the major Greek gods, by Zeus, the king of Olympus. Family Maia is the daugh ...

, near

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, Portugal;

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

;

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

, Belgium;

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

;

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...

, China;

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

, Norway. Sales and marketing offices were located in the United States,

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. In January 2007, Chipidea acquired Nordic Semiconductor ASA's Data Conversion business unit for US$5mm. In late August 2007, Chipidea was acquired by US based company MIPS Technologies Inc. for $147 million in cash plus future performance-based stock payments. As a consequence of this, Chipidea became a newly formed business group inside MIPS Technologies, yet keeping its Portuguese workforce and facilities, as well as its complete product portfolio that continued to be sold under the Chipidea brand. The brand was eventually discontinued and the remains of the original Portuguese company were fully integrated into MIPS Technologies. On May 8, 2009, the Analog Business Group of MIPS was acquired by Synopsys for $22 million in cash.

External links

ChipideaMIPS Technologies websiteSynopsys website
Defunct companies of Portugal MIPS Technologies Companies established in 1997 1997 establishments in Portugal